The Angel's Plague
by Flowers47
Summary: John was walking home from the corner shop with two gallons of milk and a lottery ticket (why not? It could be his lucky day) when the dark car pulled up alongside him. With a weary sigh, he opened the door and swung himself in. "Alright Mycroft, what is it this time?" But it was not Mycroft. "Hello, John. I'm Mrs. Holmes."


John was walking home from the corner shop with two gallons of milk and a lottery ticket (why not? It could be his lucky day) when the dark car pulled up alongside him. With a weary sigh, he opened the door and swung himself in.

"Alright Mycroft, what is it this time?"

He turned to look at his flatmate's brother- and found himself facing a very different apparition indeed.

She was tall and thin, with silver hair that was coiffed elegantly at the nape of her neck. She was wearing an emerald blouse and a beautiful dark suit, her lips painted poison-apple red. She had Mycroft's round face, and her eyes sparkled like those of both of her sons'. Or rather, her son's eyes sparkled like hers, John supposed. She extended a narrow, long-fingered hand and said,

"Hello, John. I'm Mrs. Holmes."

His mouth was suddenly dry, and someone seemed to have grabbed ahold of his throat.

"Uh duh..uh?" was all he could seem to say. The most fearsome woman in the world frowned and retracted her hand with a disapproving hum.

"Yes, quite. I hate to interrupt your day, John," He could tell that she didn't much care, "but I wanted to have a few words with you about my boys."

"Your- your boys?"

"Why, yes. From what I hear, you're quite the expert on them."

He snorted, "Is everyone in the Holmes family spying on me?"

She arched an eyebrow, "Hardly. Sherlock has told me all about you. He seems quite enamored, the silly boy."

John took a minute to decide if he was offended, and came to the conclusion that he wasn't. Mrs. Holmes continued without pause.

"Alas, my sons enjoy chattering away about other people's lives, but they hardly ever tell me things of importance about themselves," She pursed her lips and looked down, "That is where you come in, John."

Ah, that clarified things! He was indignant, "Oh-ho! You want me to be your little spy! Mycroft already asked me to do that for him, and I'm sorry ma'am, but it's not going to happen. I'm not interested in your money." He leaned to open the door.

A pair of ice-cold fingers anchored themselves to the back of his collar, "I'm not asking you to _spy_, Mr. Watson. I'm asking you to _tell _me. Just, how he is. And I'm not offering you any money either."

He hesitated, turned back slightly, "Then what makes you so sure I'll do it?"

Her eyes were dark and sad…_No! Stay strong, John! She's just trying to guilt-trip you; look, it's the same thing that Sherlock does when he sets fire to the kitchen..._

"Because I'm their mother. And I miss my sons."

_Damn it!_

He was going to sing like a canary.

"Fine. What do you want to know?" He slouched against the back of the seat with a huff. John knew that he had caved, but he didn't have to be happy about it. Now that she had persuaded him, Mrs. Holmes dropped her mysterious airs. She suddenly seemed terribly eager, and not so smooth as before.

"Sherlock. Is he eating?"

"Sometimes. I do my best, but he still fasts during cases. I can usually get a sarnie or two in him by handing him little pieces when he's distracted, though."

There was a happy glint in her eye that made her seem years younger, "What about Mycroft? Are they getting on?"

"Well, I don't quite know what 'getting on' it like in your family, but they certainly talk," He considered, "When I say talk…it's more like shouting really. Mycroft keeps tabs on Sherlock, which Sherlock doesn't much like, but I get the impression that it's eased up since…well, since Sherlock and I got the flat."

He shrugged to indicate how little he understood their dynamic and was taken aback by the scrutiny in which the lady held him.

"What?"

"Oh nothing," It wasn't nothing. With an air of practiced nonchalance, "Is Mycroft…seeing anybody? Romantically, I mean?"

"I don't really know. If he is, he doesn't mention it."

"I see. What about…Sherlock?"

"Sherlock? Seeing someone romantically? Ha, noo," John laughed at the absurdity of the thought, "You don't have to worry about Sherlock, ma'am, he's 'married to his work'. Besides, I can't imagine anyone putting up with him. Besides me, of course," He added as an afterthought, then caught Mrs. Holmes' eye, "No, no, that's not what I meant! We're not together, why does bloody everyone think that? I'm not even gay!"

There was a pregnant lapse during which John fumed in silence.

The car rounded the corner, and John knew he'd be home soon.

"John…is Sherlock…. well, that is to say…is he…. is he keeping off the drugs?" She blurted the last part in a rush and stared nervously at her hands, folded genteelly in her lap. The soldier examined her carefully, and what he saw pained him. He didn't know exactly what had happened with Sherlock and controlled substances, but he knew enough to know that this woman had suffered long at the hands of her sons. He could only imagine what it must have been like, trying to raise the Holmes brothers in all their stubbornness and wit. Her face was tense and lined, though still strangely youthful and undoubtedly beautiful- he saw nothing there but love for her children, children who didn't even see fit to console her worries that they were abusing themselves, starving, dying slowly in silence.

"Mrs. Holmes, if I may. What happened to Sherlock? He doesn't strike me as the addict."

She sighed a long, weary sigh, "You know how Sherlock does love to defy expectations. He…well, you know how usually they say it starts with a gateway drug or some such? It wasn't like that with my boy. He was fourteen when Mycroft left for uni, and I suppose he was just so _bored_ without his brother. He's so clever, but he has no impulse control, he seeks out danger just for the thrill, just because it keeps him occupied. One day, he was moping about the house like usual and the next- he had a dealer. He was smoking, taking cocaine and LSD and God knows what else, all at once, just like that." She bit her lip, "I found out about the cigarettes pretty quickly, but didn't catch on to the other things. That was Mycroft- I sent for him to come home and right away he figured it all out- the crack, the acid, he even tracked down Sherlock's dealer. He found Sherlock a centre, you know, for youth. And another one, for _gifted_ youth, when Sherlock broke out of the first one. And when Sherlock ran off again, he found a third place. That's when he started bringing the case files, from one of his uni friends who was in the force. I think that that's what really did it in the end. We replaced the hard stuff with something more interesting, and that something just happened to be solving murders. We had Sherlock off the drugs within the month."

There was a long silence while John absorbed what he had learned about his friend.

Eventually, "Yes."

She looked at him, "What?"

"Yes, he's stayed off the drugs. He still smokes sometimes, when things are really dull and he needs the nicotine, but that's all. I knew that he was in to…something, and I've done my best to keep him out of whatever it was. I don't think that he would do that to you again…or to me."

"John." Her voice broke, and she threw her arms around his shoulders. He patted her back awkwardly as she buried her face into his sweater, "Thank you," she said.

The car rolled to a stop in front of 221B. Mrs. Holmes sat up and dabbed at her eyes, the eyes that glinted like Mycroft and smiled like Sherlock.

"Thank you, John, for giving a poor woman some comfort. I shall leave you alone now." He nodded, opened the door, and grabbed his shopping bags, then paused. Turned back.

"Mrs. Holmes, I wonder if I might ask you a question."

"Yes, John, anything."

"What happened to Mr. Holmes?"

Poppy lips pursed, and the upper-class accent was silent. She stared at him, unspeaking.

"Right. None of my business. I'll just go, then."

"Goodbye, Mr. Watson. You take care now."

The dark car slid away, back to wherever the Holmes' got mysterious cars when they wanted them. Some enormous mansion, probably, John mused as he ascended the stairs. Nothing like this little, noisy, messy-

"John? Is that you? Where have you been? Did you get lost just walking down the street to the shops?"

Home sweet home.


End file.
